Chapter 5

Daniel felt like throwing the alarm clock through the window when it jerked him out of his light doze. He'd only just fallen asleep a few minutes earlier. As if he hadn't lost enough sleep already over the past month.

Janet stirred beside him as he hit the clock to turn it off. "Morning already?" she slurred.

"Yeah." Daniel threw off his covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed as he sat up. "Another damn day."

"Don't be like that," Janet said, rolling over to his side of the bed and running her hand up and down his back. "We're getting there."

Daniel sighed and slumped forward to put his face in his hands. "Not fast enough," he muttered.

Janet sat up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist, leaning her cheek on his back. "You'll be there today, won't you?"

He lowered his hands to stroke her arms. "Of course I will," he said. "Eleven o'clock, right?"

"Mm hmm. Second floor of the academy hospital."

Daniel sighed and gave her arms a gentle squeeze. "So... what's happening now?"

Janet moved away from him and pulled him back down beside her by his shoulder. When they were lying side by side again, he wrapped his arm around her waist and she laid her head on his chest. "Well," she said, "its little face and fingers and toes will be forming by now."

Daniel smiled. "I hope it has your eyes," he said.

"I hope it has yours."

Daniel swallowed hard as this thought set in. "If it does, I hope that's the only thing it inherited from me."

Janet didn't answer, but from the way she patted his chest and sighed, he could tell she was thinking the same thing.

They lay there for a few minutes in silence until Janet groaned and started to sit up. "Ah, the joys of morning sickness," she said, holding one hand to her stomach as she got out of bed.

Daniel lay there watching her as she plodded into the bathroom and shut the door. This had become their morning routine over the past few days. Daniel knew pregnant women often experienced morning sickness, but Janet's seemed to last all day, and it had started so early in the pregnancy. He knew it was probably intensified by her nerves, but it was starting to worry him.

He sighed and dragged himself out of bed when he heard the toilet flush. He wished he could just bury himself under the covers and stay in bed all day, but he knew he had a duty to Janet. It just didn't make any sense to have this ultrasound. They wouldn't be able to see anything useful yet, and there was no way an ultrasound at any point in the pregnancy would be able to tell them whether the baby had the disease or not anyway. It was pointless.

Still, Janet seemed to feel the need to do something, so ultrasounding they must go. He just hoped it wouldn't take very long.

"You okay in there?" he called through the bathroom door.

"Just peachy," Janet replied. "Listen, could you go make sure Cassie's up? She has to be at school early this morning."

"Okay."

Daniel cringed as he left the bedroom and tiptoed down the hall. He loved her dearly, but Cassie really had been a pain in the ass since they'd told her about the pregnancy, and the majority of her anger seemed to be centered at him.

'Understandable,' he thought. 'Technically, I'm the one who got her mother in this situation in the first place.'

Part of him rebelled at that thought, however. No, it had been Janet's responsibility. Why was he being blamed for this? He'd had no control over what those aliens did to him, and he'd had no control over Janet going through with this pregnancy. It wasn't fair to take it all out on him.

He quickly quashed that thought as he reached Cassie's door. There was no sense in him being as crabby with her as she was with him. That would be juvenile. He took a deep breath and knocked on her door.

No answer.

"Cassie? Are you awake?"

He waited a few seconds, but when he got no reply he knocked louder. "Cassie?"

Still no answer.

Daniel gritted his teeth for whatever insults were about to be thrown his way, and opened the door. Then opened it wider.

No Cassie.

He quickly closed it again and started down the stairs. Cassie had never been known for being a morning person, but if she'd had as much trouble sleeping as he had, maybe she'd gone downstairs to watch TV and fallen asleep on the couch.

Before he'd even reached the foot of the stairs, his theory had been proven wrong. The front door opened, and in walked a tired, disheveled Cassie. It only took Daniel a second to realize she was still wearing the same clothes she'd worn the day before.

His mind started whirring, trying to fit the pieces of this puzzle together - she'd come home last night and gone to bed, but... obviously she hadn't stayed there.

"Where the hell have you been?"

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. The half-guilty, half-defiant look on Cassie's face just made him even angrier.

"I was just... out," she said.

Daniel laughed in disbelief. "Just out? Until six thirty in the morning?"

"Relax, Daniel, I wasn't out partying or anything. I just fell asleep at Dominic's."

Daniel's mind went completely blank for a second, and then fired up again in overdrive. "You fell asleep at... well, that makes everything fine, doesn't it? Why the hell didn't you tell us you were going to Dominic's?"

"Because it was kind of a last minute decision, okay?"

"A last minute decision you couldn't have informed me and your mother about?"

"Frankly, yes!"

Daniel paused for a second to try to calm himself before speaking again. "Cassie... you're sixteen. I know you like Dominic, but spending the night with him..."

"Oh for crying out loud, Daniel, nothing happened, okay? And even if it did, at least we know how to practice safe sex."

Daniel gaped as Cassie brushed past him and stomped up the stairs. It wasn't until Cassie's door slammed that he came back to his senses. God, what had just happened here?

"Hey, what's going on out there?" Janet called from their bedroom door.

Daniel sighed. He could tell already that this was going to be a very bad day.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Janet looked down at the ultrasound photo for the millionth time. To anyone else it would just look like a tiny blob inside a larger smudge, but to her it meant so much more. They may not have been able to see anything of their baby but the fetal pole, but they'd seen its heartbeat. That was all she needed.

She glanced at the clock when she heard the front door. Barely four o'clock... it must be Cassie.

"Cassie?" she called.

There was silence for a few seconds, but soon Cassie slowly poked her head around the living room doorframe. "Am I gonna get a lecture now?" she asked in a resigned tone.

Janet blinked at her in confusion. "Lecture? Why would you need a lecture?"

Cassie stared at her for a moment as though she didn't quite understand what she was saying. "Did... Daniel talk to you earlier?" she asked.

Suspicion was starting to set in. "Talk to me about what?" Janet asked.

"Nothing," Cassie said, shaking her head sharply. "Just... Daniel was lecturing me earlier about... staying up too late. What do you want?"

Janet studied her daughter closely as she spoke, and could tell she wasn't telling the truth. She made a mental note to discuss the matter with Daniel when he got home from work. "I, uh... I just wanted to tell you that I had my first ultrasound today," she said. "We saw the baby's heartbeat. Everything seems to be going okay."

Cassie nodded and raised her eyebrows. "Great," she said. Then she spun on her heel and headed for the stairs.

"Hey... Cassie?" Janet called, rising from the couch to pursue her.

Cassie stopped at the bottom of the stairs. "Yeah?"

"Is that all you can say? Just... great?"

Cassie looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'm... happy for you?" she said.

Janet sighed and raised a hand to her forehead. She was feeling much too tired and nauseous to continue this conversation. "Okay," she said.

Her daughter looked relieved, and jogged up the stairs before Janet could say anything more.

That was the last Janet saw of Cassie until dinnertime. Daniel arrived just as she was putting it on the table, so she didn't have the opportunity to talk to him beforehand. She could see by the way he and Cassie barely even looked at each other over the table that something more than just their usual verbal battle had occurred that morning, as Daniel had claimed. It was also obviously weighing on both of their consciences, as they ate just as little as she did.

God, what was happening to her family?

Cassie disappeared as soon as she was finished eating, so Janet seized the opportunity to raise the issue. "So, what happened between you and Cassie this morning?" she asked as she and Daniel started clearing the table.

Daniel did a double take that Janet caught from the corner of her eye. "I told you," he said. "We just... got into it again. Nothing major."

"Then why did Cassie think I was going to lecture her when she got home?"

Daniel did his best fish imitation as he struggled for an answer. "I... don't know. Did she say?"

Janet smiled at his innocent act. "She said you lectured her for staying up late," she said. "Was she watching TV or something?"

"Yeah, she was just going to bed when I came downstairs," he said, looking somewhat nervous.

Janet narrowed her eyes at him. "I guess I shouldn't ask what she was watching in the wee hours of the morning," she said significantly.

From Daniel's shifty eyes and slight flush, she figured that's what the big mystery was all about. She sighed. She supposed she'd better get used to this, considering Cassie was turning seventeen in a couple of weeks. They were just lucky it wasn't anything worse.

Daniel had translation work to finish once they'd loaded the dishwasher, so as usual, Janet spent her evening alone. She almost resented the fact that Daniel's workload was increasing lately, but then she remembered how anxious they'd been for him to get back to normal. She just missed the days when they'd spent as much time as possible with each other.

Then again, maybe his work had nothing to do with it.

Janet banished that thought as soon as it entered her mind. She didn't even want to go there. They were doing fine now. They hadn't had a fight in weeks. Daniel had been nothing but kind and considerate towards her. His days of avoiding her were over.

She just wished they could go back to how close they'd been before.

It was fairly early in the evening when Daniel emerged from his office and told her he was going to bed, so Janet didn't join him right away. To her surprise and relief, he was fast asleep when she entered the bedroom. That was a very good thing, considering how little sleep he'd been getting over the past few weeks.

She tried not to make a sound as she got ready for bed, and she soon slipped in beside him and turned off her lamp. She couldn't believe how exhausted she was, when she hadn't even gone to work that day. She dreaded the way she'd feel by the time her third trimester rolled around.

It didn't take her long to drift off to sleep, but all the while part of her mind was telling her that something didn't feel right. Her body was just so desperate for rest that she couldn't pinpoint what it was. She'd reach a point where she didn't care, and she would start to give in to unconsciousness, but then her body would jerk awake only to go through the whole thing again.

Something was definitely not right... something was, in fact, very wrong.

Janet's eyes flew open and her heart started racing as soon as it came to her what it was. Oh no... oh God, please no...

She sat up in the bed and rubbed at her eyes, hoping she would wake up fully and find that she had been imagining it.

No luck. It was real.

Daniel was wheezing.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

To be continued...